Today is the day we head towards the base of the big mountains/hills just north of the city. We first left and headed towards the bus station to get tickets to our next stop, Ipoh, for 2 days from now. Along the way, we found cafe named Pace and got some coffees. David got the homemade honeycomb latte and Caitlyn got the rose latte. The rose latte was actually much sweeter and David regretted his choice some.
We kept walking and eventually found what we thought was the station, but it was just a part of a mall. We entered anyways and saw some advertisements for the highest up restaurant in Penang. We marked this spot down and got back to searching for a place to buy bus tickets. We walked around and finally found the station. There was a booth but they indicated that they didn’t sell tickets. They pointed us towards an area across the street that they said sold tickets. We find a big row of small shops selling bus tickets, and went in a few to find about prices, times they offer, and how long their bus takes. We finally find a place that seemed to have what we wanted, so we paid a couple dollars per ticket for a 10:30am bus to Ipoh.
It was pretty toasty out so David decided that he needed a drink and went in a small shop to buy a drink. Entering, he says “good morning” and the older lady shop keeper looks at him and says very stone-faced “No morning is 1230”. David looked at his watch and started laughing. He told the lady how finding bus ticket took so long we lost the morning, and they both laughed. David bought his drink and both him and the shopkeeper parted with bigger smiles than when he entered. We had things we wanted to do, but we were so close to that “highest restaurant” so we decided to see if we could check it out and take in some views. We struggled to find our way, with first entering the mall as it seemed to have multiple walkways.
We eventually got back and found signs for the restaurant. We went up an elevator to the 5th floor, getting off the elevator at an area that felt super abandoned.
We kept going down a barely lit hallway and eventually found what looked like an area plucked out of a shopping mall. This area of the building (mostly restaurants in a mall-style) was Halloween themed! There were lots of small decorations with a few larger ones too.
We found a man behind a podium with signage for the restaurant, so we asked him how to get up. He told us that he can let us into the elevator, but it turns out you need a ticket, so we were sent to a ticket booth. We figured we would check the price. We were told it is25 a person, but can be used for food or drink. We decide that it’s worth it if you can use your ticket credit, so we buy two tickets. We head back to the man and take the elevator up to the ~55th floor and get off to find the next elevator up.
There was nothing here at all, but less sketchy than floor 5. We find an employee who sends us into our final elevator up to the 68th floor.
We exit and are right in front of a beautiful restaurant with tons of windows and areas outside to take in the views. The food didn’t look very appetizing (either cheaper western food or super expensive Asian food that didn’t look that good), so we settled on David getting the cheapest beer (Carlsberg) and Caitlyn a glass of the cheapest wine (sauv blanc) to get our credit from the tickets.
We found our hotel, the blue mansion, and a ton of other places we had been while sipping on our drinks.
We then went outside to check out the views before heading back down the multiple floors to the surface.
We decided it was time to head to the hills area, so we ordered a grab to the reservoir garden hawker arcade (as recommended by chef Samuel) for lunch before our hills adventures. We finally arrived after maybe 25 to 30 minutes and went to check the food options out. It was past 2 at this point and many things had closed down, so we didn’t have a ton of choices. We did find a laksa stall selling asam and Thailand laksa so we ordered a bowl of each and sat down to wait. A man came up asked if we want to buy drinks (we learned later that often the hawker areas are owned by the drink people, who clean up the trays and food, and the food stalls pay rent to the drink sellers to be there), so David tried to get a coke light. Sadly they only had coke, but we were thirsty, so David got a coke and Caitlyn got a tiger beer.
The laksa came out, and it was not bad, but we prefer spicy curry laksa or other soups we have had with more spice or maybe even coconut milk-based broths more. We did both like the Thailand one the most, though. We started wondering at this point if we actually liked laksa or just what we had thought we knew as laksa.
We finished eating what we felt like eating and set off on a 30-40 minute walk towards our next stop – Kek Lok Si. This is an enormpus buddhist temple with what can only be described as an absolutely gargantuan 120 foot temple statue at the highest area on the grounds of the goddess of mercy. It is hard to take a picture showing the size, or to even describe it. You can see this statue from miles and miles away.
We got to the base of the temple and saw that there is a lift system up to the top. We ask the attendant and he says that we are at station 1 and the lift is currently only working from station 1 to 2, however there are some other methods of getting up. We buy 2 tickets as it is super cheap, and get in a lift car. This trip is maybe 60 seconds and by the top we started to wonder if we got scammed.
We decided to go to the top first and walk our way back down, so we find the station 2 attendant who says that the lift is closed further, but they offer a buggy ride for cheap (large golf cart like busch gardens or disney uses). She tells us that it is much easier than walking and recommends we go the whole way up via transport, as she doesn’t even know how long it would take. We pay for the buggy and hop on.
We expected this to take a while, but it literally went like 200 feet up a small hill and dropped us off. Whatever. We walked around this area briefly before deciding to head all of the way up first and going down to the other stops afterwards.
We tried to find what takes us to the final station (4) and eventually after trying to converse with like 3 shopkeepers simultaneously at a souvenier shop, we discover that there is a van that takes you, and there is one leaving right now. We reluctantly pay the fee as we don’t want to get there too late with how many plans we have, and are quickly ushered to the van before it leaves. We squeeze in and it turns out that for the first time this one is actually worthwhile. We went way higher up and further than the lift or buggy ever went. We got dropped off at the top and are absolutely blown away.
Not only is the statue so breathtakingly large, but the views down onto the city are remarkable. We explore everything we can up here, including a beautiful little pond and garden area.
Next, we hopped on the next van (we got round trip tickets) back down to station 3. Once you make your way through the giftshop, station 3 has both a beautiful garden area as well as an enormous pagoda.
We stared up at the pagoda and explored the garden area for a while. Eventually David found a small golden room with lots of statues. There wasn’t really anyone around here, but his curious nature temped him to keep looking around. You can’t see it well from the front, but behind a big table with a large display case is actually another room. In the middle is a giant Buddha, covered up with plastic. David walked around and finally noticed a small sign saying “staircase this way”. He wrapped around a wall and found basically a tiny hidden stone staircase. He walked up and found himself in a small room with multiple openings to a circular balcony outside. At this point he realized that he had made it up into the pagoda! He walked around the balcony and eventually found Caitlyn outside and told her to come in.
We went up maybe 6 floors, each time not sure if it was last and having to find a subtle entrance to the next staircase. We saw no one the whole time. We were shocked as this was beautiful, but it really was difficult to find so perhaps no one even knew they could come up here! We finally reached the top and were granted with some of the most stunning views of the mountains and the city.
David was loving this, but Caitlyn’s worsening fear of heights kept her hugging the wall the whole time. We eventually decided to go down, with Caitlyn leading the way. Upon turning the corner to start descending, a man suddenly pops put from the staircase, causing a scream from Caitlyn. He was very nice and was exploring with his wife, who was a few floors down. We descended, eventually passing his wife and telling her how worthwhile the view at the top is. She said that she is excited but her husband has a fear of heights so she isn’t sure if he was having a good time up at the top.
We took the next hour or so to explore every little nook and cranny of the complex. We eventually ran into the couple again, and the woman told us she counted and the pagoda had 184 steps total! We walked down the rest of the way and realized that the transports aside from the van from 3 to 4 were absolute ripoff.
We did find, between 1 and 2, a giant turtle statue that we noticed on the way up. The statue was placed nicely, as it sits over a pond with hundreds and hundreds of large turtles. We watched the turtles for a while and even saw a group of French people lure turtles over a walkway with pieces of vegetation, which was super entertaining and hilarious to see the turtles climbing over eachother.
We walked back down to the main city area at the base of the hills, this time through a new path through neighborhoods. The houses in this area were very, very simple. All of the people we passed along the way were so kind, all waving nodding and smiling. One man sitting in his yard even noticed we seemed confused and pointed us to the way out.
We eventually got out of the neighborhood and kept walking through the city to the Penang hill funicular. We bought 2 tickets and Went in, being the first in line. We asked and employee which is the best seat, and he said to get a seat at the bottom. We got on and after the funicular filled, it set up towards the top of the mountain. David filmed a hyperlapse video while Caitlyn took pictures. We did not expect it to go as high up as it did, but after quite a few minutes, we eventually got off at Penang Hill.
Penang Hill is a community of sorts, super high up in the jungle on the mountain. They clearly know that tourism will bring them a lot of money, so it is set up in very tourist friendly manner. We walked around for only a minute before first noticing some monkeys climbing around on a roof! We climbed up some stairs to get a better view and eventually see dozens of black monkeys with white fur around their eyes, including baby monkeys. It turns out they are dusty monkeys.
We watched them for a while before realizing it was getting late and we wanted to explore the hills more before dark. We found a large map and headed left towards an Indian temple.
Along the way, we spot a small mosque and check it out. You can’t see much or go in, so we kept going to the Indian temple. We walked around a bit before heading back down to check out the right side.
We found a beautiful overlook just in time to see the sun set. Just above this overlook is a cafe called “Cafe skyterrace”. We were told to sit anywhere, so we wanted to sit at the bar area facing the overlook. All of the seats were full with a group of people having Drone footage taken of them, so we ask an employee if we can grab stools from the upper bar area and bring them down. He says yes, so David picks up two stools to bring down. Another employee stops David and tells him that he can’t move chairs. We go back down and the group is moving, so we ask them if we can take two stools. They say sure so we start to sit and another employee says that we can’t sit here as they don’t want people at the edge (then why have a bar here???). We realized that the place probably offers Drone footage for a price and the group paid to sit there for a few minutes while an employee runs the drone and gets some video.
We eventually sit at a table close to the edge, finding it funny how the bar fully impedes the view of anyone at a table from seeing over the edge. We ordered 2 tiger beer and sat listening to live music for a little while.
With nighttime quickly taking over, we took the funicular back down to the base of the hill and ordered a Grab back to our area. Our driver had a car lit up with lights and a TV screen playing old American 50’s music with the lights pulsing to the music. We take the grab back to gravybaby to get some HH cocktails. We share a few, realizing that they were actually super weak.
We decided we should grab some food and start heading towards bed, so we walked to the Kimberley Street Food Night Market.
We choose an oyster omlette, Mee goreng sotong, and some pork satay skewers. The omlette was delicious, and was actually Caitlyn’s favorite of the three. It is super hard to describe how this is different than another omlette, but it was. The oysters were fine, but the egg was amazing. The mee goreng was very good, but just a noodle dish. We didn’t enjoy it enough to remember the name without having to look it up, if that explains things. The satay skewers were good, but not as good as in Singapore.
We then went to a 711 for cold drinks, but the waters weren’t cold, so we ended up going to two more convenience stores (what an ironic name) before giving up and bringing back cold soda and water to the room. We got back, showered, and went to bed.
David’s thoughts of the day: So many convenience stores here do not have cold drinks. They do have refrigerators like normal stores, but for some reason the drinks are mever cold. Either the beer, water, or sodas are so frequently room temperature or barely cold.
Caitlyn’s thoughts of the day: I have noticed that some places that should be hot tourist spots (like the Blue Mansion and today’s Sky Restaurant) and should hypothetically be really cool tourist areas with elevated food and drink options are actually the exact opposite. We were surprised that the wine and beer options at Blue Mansion were super cheap (like the equivalent of barefoot) and the food at the Sky Restaurant which SEEMED like it would have been fancy was actually things like sub-par bar food at American road-side restaurants.
Steps walked: 21,848
Miles walked: 10.61
Bluming Travelers 